


On the Road Again

by InterNutter



Series: When We Were Us [13]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Dissociation, Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-04
Updated: 2018-02-05
Packaged: 2019-03-13 17:28:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13575450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InterNutter/pseuds/InterNutter
Summary: Some things change, some things remain the same. As always, a little kindness can go a long way.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: The Adventure Zone in general and the Balance Arc in particular belong to the McElroys. I just make things like this because I love it so much.

Running. Cold and alone. Away from Orcs. Away from humans. Away from  _ her. _ Into fires. Into darkness. Into a pit of grasping hands trying to tear him apart…

Koko woke in terror. He didn’t know where he was. He couldn’t remember how he got here. He struggled to escape. He couldn’t get free! They had him! They had him!

And there was a warm body across his. Familiar and warm. “Koko. Koko, ssh-ssh-ssh… You’re safe. It’s okay.”

What came out of his mouth was an incoherent babble of half-sentences. “She’s-- I gotta-- they-- we-- I can’t-- I can’t breathe.” His breath stopped in his throat. He really couldn’t breathe. It was the bloody vomit all over again.  _ She _ was going to hurt Lulu so bad…

“C’mon Koko. Tell me five things you can see. Right now. Any five things.”

Short breaths. “I see… th’ moon. I see… Lulu.” She smiled for him in the greys of the night. “I see… stars. I see… grass. I see… tree roots.”

“Good. Good. Tell me four things you can hear, Koko. You’re doing good.”

His breaths were getting deeper. More relaxed. “I hear… crickets. I hear… an owl. I hear… your loud damn stomach.” She laughed. “I hear your laughing.”

“That’s good. That’s great. You’re doing great, Koko. Tell me three things you can feel.”

“I feel your pointy damn hips. I feel… rocks under me. I feel hungry, too.”

“That’s great. That’s fabulous. You got two things you can smell?”

He could breathe deep, now. “Petrichor. It’s been raining. And… your B.O.”

She giggled. “Okay. One thing you can taste. This is the easy one. You can do it, ‘Ko.”

He caught a drip of water off the leaves of the tree that was overhanging the badger burrow they’d been trying to sleep in. Smacked his lips. “Key lime go-gurt.”

“You okay, now Koko?”

“Sure. Sure. I’m here and now. Koko’s good in here.”

“You know where we are?”

“In a badger burrow five miles from Phandalin.”

“You know where  _ she _ is?”

“Fuck-off nowhere and hopefully burning in hell.”

Lulu threw his arms around him. “Yeah. From your lips to the deaf gods’ ears.”

Even though she was pointy, her weight reassured him. Helped him feel safe. Helped him feel secure. Helped him relax enough to drift back into the comfort of sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

Lulu acted reflexively when the boot landed on her hip. Curling up and out of their burrow, seizing hold of the leg attached to the boot. Koko wasn’t far behind, raising a wand, aimed at where a head could easily be. All with his eyes closed.

The human man screamed, “Don’t eat me!”

A distant voice yelled, “Damnit, Lars!”

People crashing and bashing through the woodland. The glare of lanterns turning the greys of the night into amber. Lulu reached for her wand, even as she methodically took the weapons and coin purse off of this Human. Using his jacket and clothing to roughly bind him.

Koko was awake, now. Watching the lights and the bumbling humans. Sitting on their captive so that he would have a rougher time moving.

“It’s got me,” presumably-Lars hollered. “Oh God, it’s got me!”

An arrow missed their heads by a mile. Koko put up a shield, but otherwise kept his spell slots for the important stuff. Lulu kept inside the shield. Her own wand at the ready.

Time would tell, and soon, what sort of people these were.

A ranger entered their little patch. Elven. Their eyes a luminous lavender in the evening light. She took in the sight of the twins and gasped. Lowering her aim and murmuring, “Oh my God…”

“Eclaire! What do your Elf eyes see?”

“Children,” she said. “Lars got himself captured by a pair of  _ children…” _ She stowed her arrow and hung up her bow. Knelt, and switched to Elven. One of the more common dialects.  _ “Hail and well-met, young ones. I mean you no harm. I would be happier if you let Lars go.” _

“We speak Common,” said Lulu.

“He stood on us,” complained Koko.

“Not on purpose,” hollered Lars. “Not on purpose, I swear! I was just off in the woods to -uh... Well, it’s too late now.”

Koko sniffed. “Eeuww… he peed himself. And worse.” His shield faded as he tried to distance himself from Lars.

They both shifted off of Lars with noises of disgust. Clung to each other, ready to take off in a second if it came to that.

Lars scrambled on all fours for Eclaire. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I swear I’ll stay inside the lamplight from now on. No more shitting in the dark.”

Eclaire was reaching inside her coat. “It’s all right, now. I’m not gonna hurt you.” She had a package of lembas. Elven travel bread. “I bet you’re hungry, right? Two kids, travelling alone. It can’t be easy. Was your gear a gift? Are you running away from home?”

“We don’t have a home,” Lulu snatched the lembas off her and automatically broke it in two. Letting Koko pick his share. As far as lembas was concerned, it wasn’t bad. Not really. Regular lembas was plain and gained the flavour of the pocket or the packet after a time. This one was… floral.

“Garlic chives and mustard flowers?” asked Koko.

“Got it in one,” smiled Eclaire. “Most don’t pick up on that.”

“Have you tried rosemary and sea salt? Maybe a dash of vinaigrette?”

Eclaire’s smile grew bigger. “You know your stuff, young man.” The lanterns caught up with the scene. Revealing that she was quite blue and sported green braids in a traditional Elven style. She was almost a stereotypical Elven Ranger. Green armour and all. “How much else do you know?”

Lulu looked to Koko, who already had a cocky grin. “Try us,” she said. “We’re fucking awesome.”

They were hustled back to a caravan train, and Lars was sent with a bodyguard to a river to wash in, and came back with a red face and a towel strategically around his middle.

“We stop for breakfast,” said Eclaire. “That’s when you two pop into the chuck wagon and show us what you got.”

“Uuuuhhh,” said one of her travelling companions. “You do know that they’re both witch-eyed, right?”

“We’re not witch-eyed,” said Koko. “We have heterochromia.”

“Get with the times,” added Lulu.

And the man actually blushed and stammered an apology.

The twins smirked at each other. Things were looking up.

 

END


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